Power of place
Subtitle: the religious landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue) in medieval China
By: James Robson.
Series: Harvard East Asian monographs -- 316
Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Cambridge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 506
ISBN-13: 9780674033320
Subjects: Mountains -- Religious aspects -- Buddhism; Mountains -- Religious aspects -- Taoism; Buddhism -- China -- History; Taoism -- China -- History; Buddhism -- Relations -- Taoism; Taoism -- Relations -- Buddhism; Heng Mountain (Hunan Sheng, China) -- History
Description: "Throughout Chinese history mountains have been integral components of the religious landscape. They have been considered divine or numinous sites, the abodes of deities, the preferred locations for temples and monasteries, and destinations for pilgrims. Early in Chinese history a set of five mountains were co-opted into the imperial cult and declared sacred peaks, yue, demarcating and protecting the boundaries of the Chinese imperium. The Southern Sacred Peak, or Nanyue, is of interest to scholars not the least because the title has been awarded to several different mountains over the years. The dynamic nature of Nanyue raises a significant theoretical issue of the mobility of sacred space and the nature of the struggles involved in such moves. Another facet of Nanyue is the multiple meanings assigned to this place: political, religious, and cultural. Of particular interest is the negotiation of this space by Daoists and Buddhists. The history of their interaction leads to questions about the nature of the divisions between these two religious traditions."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.